Innovation and Discovery

Biofilms are communities of bacteria that adhere to a surface and are nearly impossible to eradicate when they are pathogenic. The laboratories of Lauren Bakaletz, PhD, director of the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and Steven Goodman, PhD, principal investigator in the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis, are co-developers of an innovative therapeutic that targets an integral component of extracellular DNA, which is universally found in biofilm matrixes in the majority of chronic and recurrent diseases, including urinary tract infections, middle ear infections, sinusitis and chronic wound infections. The novel approach was reported in a recent study published in the journal EBioMedicine.

Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain is increasingly used to predict neurodevelopmental outcomes in premature infants, but the existing systems of scoring those MRIs rely heavily on expert opinion. Laurel Slaughter, MD, neurologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, is lead author of a study in the journal Neonatology that explored a more objective system for scoring MRIs. Moderate-to-severe gyral maturation delay, an abnormality of the brain’s gray matter, was found to be a significant predictor of overall neurodevelopmental impairment in premature infants with extremely low birth weights.